Applying History: A Proposal for a New Direction for Historians

26 Historically Speaking · July/August 2005 Applying History: A Proposal for a New Direction for Historians Anne Effland Many historians have begun to search for ways to connect historical studies witii contemporary issues. Recent discussions within the field about historians as public intellectuals have focused on venues for articulation of historical knowledge by recognized experts. But there are other ways to make what historians know and how diey think vital elements in the discussions we hold as a society: becoming fully integrated participants in the analysis diat grounds public policy formulation could be one of tiiose ways. As a professionally trained historian working unexpectedly in public policy analysis for the last ten years, I have spent much time both observing and learning the methods and tiieories of applied social science, reexamining my own preparation as a historian, and considering what my skills and expertise bring to public policy analysis that is not provided by other social scientists. From this experience, I conclude that historians would do well to develop a specialization in applied history that would use traditional qualitative and quantitative research methods, coupled with synthesized historical interpretation, to contribute to public policy analysis. Social scientists use historical sources regularly in policy analysis, but without the background in interpretation and synthesis and die training in research methods that graduate education in history provides. Forecasting and other predictive models rely heavily on historical data and on dieories developed from analysis of historical patterns. Why, then, are there so few historians applying their disciplinary skills and perspective to public policy analysis? In my view, it is due in large part to a failure by the profession to recognize that such a role is appropriate for historians—that education in historical mediods and historical tiiinking can contribute constructively and directly to solving public problems. Students interested in tiiis potential career direction need strong preparation in social science research methods and tiieories, as well as in traditional historical inquiry. More importantly , the profession must understand die value of this undertaking well enough to persuade tiiose who hire applied social scientists tiiat historians will be a valuable asset and will bring uniquely useful knowledge and mediods to tiieir institutions. We ourselves must be convinced of the value of historical knowledge and historical methods in approaching the complex problems of modern society. Applied history is not a new idea. Julian Zelizer has traced die effort to integrate historical research and understanding into public policy making to die launch in die 1970s of the field of public history and to the concurrent development of the field of policy analysis . In the introduction to the first issue of The Public Historian, the editor observed tiiat the other social science disciplines had "made the transition from academy to public arena easily and without compromise," unlike historians who had "literally retreated into the proverbial ivory tower."i The public history movement intended to remedy that "isolation " by bringing the practice of history back to the public through historians working in a range of nonacademic venues, including those that could connect history and policy makers. Intellectual leadership of die new field of "policy history," however, fell primarily to academic historians, who sought ways to integrate with the growing field ofpublic policy studies. Academic interest in policy history grew during the late 1970s and early 1980s and led to die development of courses in historical thinking for government and business leaders. Modeled on the work of political scientist Richard Neustadt and historian Ernest May,2 these courses exposed decision makers to the historical method of analysis that paid attention to context and place in time and taught them how to apply that method appropriately for making decisions. Although policy history in some senses envisioned itself as applied history, it never became applied history in the way that other social science disciplines had developed applied fields. Applied social sciences do not rely on a scholar-centered model, in which academics teach policy makers how to apply die research they produce in the academy— social scientists do die work tiiemselves as members of policy staffs of government agencies and private policy research institutions . Policy historians' general rejection, as ahistorical, of the "social scientific model...